[Sidenote:  Ob. 3.] Thirdly, the greatest fauourers of this voyage can not denie, but that if any such passage be, it lieth subiect vnto yce and snow for the most part of the yeere, whereas it standeth in the edge of the frostie Zone.  Before the Sunne hath warmed the ayre, and dissolued the yce, eche one well knoweth that there can be no sailing:  the yce once broken through the continuall abode the sunne maketh a certaine season in those parts, how shall it be possible for so weake a vessel as a shippe is, to holde out amid whole Ilands, as it were of yce continually beating on eche side, and at the mouth of that gulfe, issuing downe furiously from the north, and safely to passe, when whole mountaines of yce and snow shall be tumbled downe vpon her?

[Sidenote:  Ob. 4.] Well, graunt the West Indies not to continue continent vnto the Pole, grant there be a passage betweene these two lands, let the gulfe lie neerer vs then commonly in cardes we finde it set, namely, betweene the 61. and 64. degrees north, as Gemma Frisius in his mappes and globes imagineth it, and so left by our countryman Sebastian Cabot in his table which the Earle of Bedford hath at Cheinies:  Let the way be voyde of all difficulties, yet doeth it not follow that wee haue free passage to Cathayo.  For examples sake:  You may trend all Norway, Finmarke, and Lappeland, and then bowe Southward to Saint Nicholas in Moscouia:  you may likewise in the Mediterranean Sea fetch Constantinople, and the mouth of Tanais:  yet is there no passage by Sea through Moscouia into Pont Euxine, now called Mare Maggiore.  Againe, in the aforesaid Mediterranean sea, we saile to Alexandria in Egypt, the Barbarians bring their pearle and spices from the Moluccaes vp the Red sea or Arabian gulph to Sues, scarcely three dayes iourney from the aforesayd hauen:  yet haue wee no way by sea from Alexandria to the Moluccaes, for that Isthmos or litle straight of land betweene the two seas.  In like maner although the Northerne passage be free at 61 degrees of latitude, and the West Ocean beyond America, vsually called Mar del Zur, knowen to be open at 40. degrees eleuation from the Island Iapan, yea, three hundred leagues Northerly aboue Iapan:  yet may there be land to hinder the thorow passage that way by Sea, as in the examples aforesaid it falleth out, Asia and America there being ioyned together in one continent.  Ne can this opinion seeme altogether friuolous vnto any one that diligently peruseth our Cosmographers doings.  Iosephus Moletius is of that minde, not onely in his plaine Hemispheres of the world, but also in his Sea card.  The French Geographers in like maner be of the same opinion, as by their Mappe cut out in forme of a Hart you may perceiue:  as though the West Indies were part of Asia.  Which sentence well agreeth with that old conclusion in the Schooles.  Quicquid praeter Africam et Europam est, Asia est, Whatsoeuer land doeth neither apperteine vnto Afrike nor to Europe, is part of Asia.